by Allan Gonzales
Discipline, Consistency and Accountability – These are all lessons that Sergio Ráez Villanueva stands by and passes on to the next generation. “I’m passing the torch along and helping coach the next young generation.”
Ráez Villanueva is currently a long-distance runner who also helps coach youth athletes in the Mississauga Track & Field Club in endurance and long distance running. This is the same club where Sergio started running when he came to Canada.
“I see these athletes and see me in their shoes when I was first starting competitive running.”
Despite the challenges growing up in Mississauga as an immigrant, it did not stop him from making an impact amongst youth. Today he coaches youth to be independent, but more importantly so they can have fun and enjoy the sport, showing up to practice because they want to be here to improve.
“That applies not only to running, but to anything in life. We always try to put it a step beyond,” he says. “We talk a lot about running obviously being a running practice, but there’s a lot of transferable things beyond that.”
Despite the challenges growing up in Mississauga as an immigrant, it did not stop him from making an impact amongst youth. Today he coaches youth to be independent, but more importantly so they can have fun and enjoy the sport, showing up to practice because they want to be here to improve.
Aside from coaching youth, Ráez Villanueva is also a Research Coordinator at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre focusing on Oncology research, dealing with data collection from clinical trials, stakeholder communications, and advocating for patients’ health.
“After graduating from university and having an opportunity to take on this role, I thought it would be a good experience to broaden my horizons. If I’m going to learn something different, let it be something that’s fairly different but still related in the Sciences field.”
Since then, he has been working his way up to now recently being a manager in research planning.
Ráez Villanueva was awarded a Future Aces Scholarship back in 2015. Fast forward ten years later, and he still lives by two of the scholarship’s attributes today; and even applies them in his coaching, work, and day-to-day life:
Service
To him, it’s about using your skills and experience as an athlete to give back to the younger generation who are getting into sports and developing a healthy lifestyle. “A lot of the things we do should be with the idea and goal of bettering the common good.”
Attitude
Ráez Villanueva emphasizes on approaching things with a positive perspective no matter how complicated and busy life gets. He expresses how important it is to approach things with an optimistic attitude. He says that this positive energy can affect those around you. “We have to approach these things with a positive attitude because ultimately it’s contagious,” he says. “It should be a positive atmosphere so that that attitude component is key to maintain positive relationships with your fellow coaches, or your fellow athletes, or your fellow co-workers, or whoever you will be interacting with.”
The Future Aces Scholarship’s creed is what drives him to do the work that he is passionate about, seeking for different ways to return the favour to others. He re-emphasizes that coaching is a way to give back to younger athletes getting into running and active living. Ráez Villanueva also applies this to his work on research, as the team he works with ultimately aims to provide a service to patients.
“A lot of the things we do is ultimately for the betterment of our cancer patients, these are patients that need care and are seeking alternate treatments for their cancers. We try to help patients to see if they can benefit from an alternate treatment for these advanced cancers that they may have. Also to help contribute to research in knowing if a treatment is not as good, or if another treatment is a little better.”
From his personal experience, he encourages the next generation to keep an open mind and to branch out your skills. “You’re going to get the knowledge and the theory in school but, especially for the workforce, it’s good for employers to see that you’re more than just that. They want to see that you have some practical skill too be it in research or in anything really. As long as you’re putting your knowledge to use.”